You are such a ray of sunshine. Thank you for the effort you poor into this community. My hubby and I got to meet you at Baker Creek Tulip Festival a few weeks ago, we hope to run into y'all again. Have a blessed summer.
MINDFUL FARMER here on RUclips did a video on this a year ago and said determinant- bush tomatoes do not need this type of pruning for those that will be wondering... 🙂
I’m a plant biologist and I just wanted to say that your pepper plant is what they call a “dicot”, meaning dicotyledon which means it has 2 “cotyledons” or called, ”seed leaves”. You mentioned three or four cotyledons on the pepper plant but it actually only has two. The rest of them are just regular leaves aka true leaves or photosynthesis leaves.
Yes! Most did great, came back with 2 leaders! A few didn’t but that’s ok! I always tip my peppers for max production too. Keep teaching, Jill! I love your focus of teaching big production on small space!
I pinched all mine above the 1st set of true leaves rather than above the cotyledon leaves. All 6 are double leaders. May just be a coincidence, but may just give the plant a head start on maturity before pinching.
The thing that convinced me to prune peppers was a bird did it for me! I had an ancho pepper plant maybe in the range of 6-8 inches tall a bird landed on it and broke the top off only leaving one set of leaves. I decided to leave it and see what would happen. It out grew all the other ancho pepper plants and was up to my shoulder! I am 5’4 for reference!! I wish I could post a picture! Thanks for all the info Jill💕
Hey Jill, so I did try this hard pruning on some of my tomatoes. Oddly enough i have had mixed results. I pruned 2 different varieties. A Black Krim heirloom and a Big Brandy hybrid. The results are, the Black Krims 99% produced the double leader. The hybrid Big Brandy maybe 5%. Did them both at the same time and the same way. I have some that I didn't prune as well and am going to plant them in the same beds to see how things work out for us here with both technique's. We are in Ontario zone 4b. It's always fun to try new approaches and way them against the way we have been doing it in the past. I'll keep you posted as the season goes.
Whether or not you do this can depend on the length of your growing season and how fast your plants grow in your climate. For peppers especially, I start mine pretty early, but they grow slowly and don't go out into the garden until June usually, so I really don't want to set them back by hard pruning, not convinced I would get more total yield that way. Some pepper plants are naturally bushy to begin with, so really not an issue.
How are you making those extra large soil blocks? I did a quick search and I didn't see where anything was available to make a soil block that big. Did you make your own, and if so can you do a little vlog about it. Thanks
Thank you for sharing that info about pruning. I did it and it worked. I’m so excited. I started my peppers February 1, 60 different kinds. They are about 4” tall. They look so good. I’m super excited and I haven’t had to transplant them but one time. 🫶🏻
Mine are just a bit too established to prune for the double leader tomatoes. However I do pinch my peppers and it really makes a huge difference! I also have 1 more variety of tomatoes I want to grow for production and I want to try the double leader on them. Fingers crossed!
Video idea for you. I'm always curious what plants that you sow openly in a tray to be separated later. I know certain plants you can do this with and some you cannot. I have a hard time distinguishing the two apart, besides the common plants such as tomatoes, peppers, etc.
Jill you sure do have good timing, I was wondering if I could do this to my peppers this morning, they are ready to be pruned:) thanks so much for sharing you knowledge.have a wonderful day.
Too late to prune mine but I take clones. I only had two seeds I knew were true to breed and only grow one type which was the cultivar for most of the tomatoes you buy now. I only grow those because I worry about cross-contamination of seed. ❤. I'm new to growing peppers though and I appreciate the hint!
Not a top pruning question but when do you fertilize your seedlings, if you do? And what should I use? Fairly new to starting seeds and I'm wanting them to flourish this season.
Yes I did it and got so excited when I seen the two leader stems first develop! Definitely will be doing it to my peppers. One year a wormy got a hold of my pepper and the ones that were eaten back (hard pruned 😂) produced much more than the ones that weren’t. I chalked it up to being a different variety. Nature is so awesome! We are going to be passing through central Arkansas and need some stopping points, any recommendations??
I would love to see an experiment comparison with your tomatoes. Will you plant the unprinted and 1 pruned next to eachother and weigh the fruits? I am wondering if the weights will be similar because they are sharing the roots on the 2 leader. My plants are too grown to try this on my own.
Yes you can. I just did mine a few days ago and they are already producing extra growth. They’re big enough to go outside but we are still having cooler weather than I’d like. I’ve pruned them younger in the past but I think it was so hot last year that it set them back. These more mature peppers look like they will be in much better shape to handle whatever Mother Nature throws at them this year. They’re mature enough to where they were starting to produce some flower buds, so pruning off the tops took those off in the process, which is better than letting them put energy into fruiting too soon.
❓I'm just so curious.❓ Why is hard pruning better than letting the first sucker grow?.... 🤔 We just could not bring ourselves to top ours. We let our first suckers grow...
I did go back and prune all my tomato seedlings. All varieties, but Celebrity now have 2 leaders. Several Celebrities have 2, but the sure are slow. Any tips?
You won’t want to prune celebrity tomatoes because the don’t grow tall anyway. If you prune it the vigorness will not be increased. To prune these you would remove all the suckers from the first flower clusters and then downward to the ground. You might want to consider starting some more seeds to have extra of the celebrity tomato you mentioned because often times once you hard prune a determinate tomato they will not advance to fruiting or even getting taller or struggling to get taller. But mainly I would be worried that it will not produce any tomatoes because by topping it you sent a message to the plant itself to just stop.
@@MaryDavidson911 50% have grown their 2 leaders, and the rest look like they are ready to burst out their leaders. I am hoping it works. I have many other plants to fill in for the Celebrity if they fail. Thank you for the info.
I just don't understand...I use good soil and even organically fertilize every 2-3 weeks but my starts come up, grow alittle then that's it!! I use grow lights too. There's bunches of variables but thought I hit several.
Is it just soil you planted the seeds in? Soil can compact hard and make it hard for roots to spread, might need amendment of something else to loosen the growing medium. Just a possibility
The cotyledons are not the first “true leaves”… the first true leaves are the very next ones that emerge after the cotyledons.
You are such a ray of sunshine. Thank you for the effort you poor into this community. My hubby and I got to meet you at Baker Creek Tulip Festival a few weeks ago, we hope to run into y'all again. Have a blessed summer.
MINDFUL FARMER here on RUclips
did a video on this a year ago and said determinant- bush tomatoes do not need this type of pruning for those that will be wondering... 🙂
I’m a plant biologist and I just wanted to say that your pepper plant is what they call a “dicot”, meaning dicotyledon which means it has 2 “cotyledons” or called, ”seed leaves”. You mentioned three or four cotyledons on the pepper plant but it actually only has two. The rest of them are just regular leaves aka true leaves or photosynthesis leaves.
Thanks for sharing
Yes! Most did great, came back with 2 leaders! A few didn’t but that’s ok! I always tip my peppers for max production too. Keep teaching, Jill! I love your focus of teaching big production on small space!
I pinched all mine above the 1st set of true leaves rather than above the cotyledon leaves. All 6 are double leaders. May just be a coincidence, but may just give the plant a head start on maturity before pinching.
Great info! Thanks for sharing 😊
You are so welcome!
Thanks for sharing girl ❤
You're welcome
I’m so nervous about hard pruning the tomatoes!! I always top my peppers though!!
I’m nervous too! I’m going to do half of my seedlings and see how it goes
The thing that convinced me to prune peppers was a bird did it for me! I had an ancho pepper plant maybe in the range of 6-8 inches tall a bird landed on it and broke the top off only leaving one set of leaves. I decided to leave it and see what would happen. It out grew all the other ancho pepper plants and was up to my shoulder! I am 5’4 for reference!! I wish I could post a picture! Thanks for all the info Jill💕
Papaw sent me here from Poor Boys Little Homestead. Such a cool idea to try.
Huh.... I've never hard pruned my tomato seedlings. I'll think about this for next year. Peppers I've done and does make a big difference!
Hey Jill, so I did try this hard pruning on some of my tomatoes. Oddly enough i have had mixed results. I pruned 2 different varieties. A Black Krim heirloom and a Big Brandy hybrid. The results are, the Black Krims 99% produced the double leader. The hybrid Big Brandy maybe 5%. Did them both at the same time and the same way. I have some that I didn't prune as well and am going to plant them in the same beds to see how things work out for us here with both technique's. We are in Ontario zone 4b. It's always fun to try new approaches and way them against the way we have been doing it in the past. I'll keep you posted as the season goes.
Whether or not you do this can depend on the length of your growing season and how fast your plants grow in your climate. For peppers especially, I start mine pretty early, but they grow slowly and don't go out into the garden until June usually, so I really don't want to set them back by hard pruning, not convinced I would get more total yield that way. Some pepper plants are naturally bushy to begin with, so really not an issue.
Thank you ❤ I did pinch off a tomato. I will try a pepper next.
How are you making those extra large soil blocks? I did a quick search and I didn't see where anything was available to make a soil block that big. Did you make your own, and if so can you do a little vlog about it. Thanks
Thank you for sharing that info about pruning. I did it and it worked. I’m so excited. I started my peppers February 1, 60 different kinds. They are about 4” tall. They look so good. I’m super excited and I haven’t had to transplant them but one time. 🫶🏻
Yay! Hope you have a successful garden this year
very good ,,🌳
Thank you! Cheers!
We did. We are excited to see how they grow!
Mine are just a bit too established to prune for the double leader tomatoes. However I do pinch my peppers and it really makes a huge difference! I also have 1 more variety of tomatoes I want to grow for production and I want to try the double leader on them. Fingers crossed!
Nice
Great presentation!! Thank you.
Video idea for you. I'm always curious what plants that you sow openly in a tray to be separated later. I know certain plants you can do this with and some you cannot. I have a hard time distinguishing the two apart, besides the common plants such as tomatoes, peppers, etc.
Jill you sure do have good timing, I was wondering if I could do this to my peppers this morning, they are ready to be pruned:) thanks so much for sharing you knowledge.have a wonderful day.
Too late to prune mine but I take clones. I only had two seeds I knew were true to breed and only grow one type which was the cultivar for most of the tomatoes you buy now. I only grow those because I worry about cross-contamination of seed. ❤. I'm new to growing peppers though and I appreciate the hint!
Not a top pruning question but when do you fertilize your seedlings, if you do? And what should I use? Fairly new to starting seeds and I'm wanting them to flourish this season.
Yes I did it and got so excited when I seen the two leader stems first develop! Definitely will be doing it to my peppers. One year a wormy got a hold of my pepper and the ones that were eaten back (hard pruned 😂) produced much more than the ones that weren’t. I chalked it up to being a different variety. Nature is so awesome!
We are going to be passing through central Arkansas and need some stopping points, any recommendations??
I had 2 grow no leaders. Should I have pruned closer to the cotyledons?
I would love to see an experiment comparison with your tomatoes. Will you plant the unprinted and 1 pruned next to eachother and weigh the fruits? I am wondering if the weights will be similar because they are sharing the roots on the 2 leader. My plants are too grown to try this on my own.
Is it too late to top the one you showed that wasn't hard pruned?
Also would love examples later of pruning peppers and basil out in the garden.
I may try hard pruning a couple tomatoes this year. I wonder how this would work on a determinate tomato?
Somehow this happens with almost all of my indeterminate tomato plants without me hard pruning them.
Does it work for only indeterminate variety tomatoes??
Would you do this for both type of tomatoes or just indeterminate tomatoes?
Can you prune the peppers at a later time, mine have already gotten tall. Or should I leave them alone at this point?
Yes you can. I just did mine a few days ago and they are already producing extra growth. They’re big enough to go outside but we are still having cooler weather than I’d like. I’ve pruned them younger in the past but I think it was so hot last year that it set them back. These more mature peppers look like they will be in much better shape to handle whatever Mother Nature throws at them this year. They’re mature enough to where they were starting to produce some flower buds, so pruning off the tops took those off in the process, which is better than letting them put energy into fruiting too soon.
Can this only be done with indeterminate tomatoes?
❓I'm just so curious.❓ Why is hard pruning better than letting the first sucker grow?.... 🤔
We just could not bring ourselves to top ours. We let our first suckers grow...
I'm not trying to be a brat. I just want to know why it's better??
I did go back and prune all my tomato seedlings. All varieties, but Celebrity now have 2 leaders. Several Celebrities have 2, but the sure are slow. Any tips?
You won’t want to prune celebrity tomatoes because the don’t grow tall anyway. If you prune it the vigorness will not be increased. To prune these you would remove all the suckers from the first flower clusters and then downward to the ground. You might want to consider starting some more seeds to have extra of the celebrity tomato you mentioned because often times once you hard prune a determinate tomato they will not advance to fruiting or even getting taller or struggling to get taller. But mainly I would be worried that it will not produce any tomatoes because by topping it you sent a message to the plant itself to just stop.
@@MaryDavidson911 50% have grown their 2 leaders, and the rest look like they are ready to burst out their leaders. I am hoping it works. I have many other plants to fill in for the Celebrity if they fail. Thank you for the info.
I just don't understand...I use good soil and even organically fertilize every 2-3 weeks but my starts come up, grow alittle then that's it!! I use grow lights too. There's bunches of variables but thought I hit several.
Are they staying warm at night
Is it just soil you planted the seeds in? Soil can compact hard and make it hard for roots to spread, might need amendment of something else to loosen the growing medium. Just a possibility